Research from a University of Chester student will contribute to a national project to help improve indoor air quality in homes and workplaces.

Harriet Jones, from Chester, investigated the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to problems involving airflow in houses and offices. Her preliminary results have fed into the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Air Quality Networks project, to boost air quality in domestic and business environments.

Miss Jones is in her penultimate year studying for a BSc in Chemistry and carried out a placement as a computational scientist, working for the STFC in the Scientific Computing Department at Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington.

Harriet said: "This placement has been an amazing opportunity for me and one that undoubtedly would not have happened without the support of the Chemistry Department at the University of Chester. The experience I gained during my second year Experiential Learning project gave me the edge I needed for my placement application and the support I received during my application process contributed greatly to its success."

"I was able to observe cutting-edge scientific research in action, and I benefited from the provision of STFC’s incredible facilities. Calculations that took an hour on the Scafell Pike supercomputer at STFC Hartree Centre could have taken days if done on a standard laptop!"

Dr Stefano Rolfo, Principal Computational Scientist at STFC, said: "Harriet has passed a very tough selection process with more than 50 applicants from all UK universities. Her knowledge of air quality had been essential to the success of the project and results will be further disseminated and used to validate CFD modelling for air quality research."

Dr Mark McAuley, Deputy Head of Physcial, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences at the Univery of Chester said that the student had been a pleasure to teach.

"Harriet is also going to put her computational modelling skills to good use next year when she undertakes her research dissertation in this field. There is no doubt it will be a success for her."